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One
Violet
The office is quiet this morning, with the soft purr of phones and shuffle of papers. Mouses click and keyboards tap. Voices murmur over by the water cooler, and my stomach grumbles behind my desk, complaining that half a stale bagel was barely any breakfast at all.
It’s never this freaking quiet at Grapevine. Usually, people are laughing on the phone, charming clients and promising the world; flirting by the photocopier and smacking staplers like they’re banging a drum. Most days I work with earbuds wedged in my ears, listening to the calming throb of LoFi so I don’t snap a pencil and yell at everyone to shut the hell up.
Today is different. Eerily so. But I guess it’s the calm before the storm—the hush before tonight’s big party.
The air changes in the room as a new pair of footsteps enter behind me. Studiously gnawing on my pencil, I pretend not to notice the way the little hairs on my arms stand on end, nor how my stomach squirms for a whole new reason.
He’s here.
Jude Jenkins is here.
It’s fine. Of course he’s here.
Heworkshere, and even though I hate every single thing about this man, even though he is the bane of my life, it shouldn’t shock my system every time he walks into a room.
“Violet,” Jude says, ruffling my hair as he walks past. My rival throws himself down into the chair opposite mine, then scoots closer to his desk, grinning the whole time. He’s in a white shirt with a skinny black tie today, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and his dark hair is windswept. He looks like a sexy weatherman. Did he go out for a walk? Where?
I glare back from beneath my messed up bangs. “Judas.”
He was gone for thirty minutes, but it felt like a week.
“It’s just Jude, actually.” He tosses a nut and catches it in his mouth, cracking it between his teeth. Dark blue eyes twinkle at me. Why doesn’t he ever miss his mouth? He’s always so freaking smooth with everything. Does he rehearse that nut trick at home? “But don’t feel bad. The pressure of work can get to anybody. Let me know if I should take a few clients off your plate, okay?”
Ugh.
I hate him so much.
My heart’s thumping harder already, pulsing with loathing, racing the way it always does when Jude is near. But I force my grip to stay loose around my pencil, because there’s no point white-knuckling the stationery where my rival can see, because then he’llknowhe’s getting to me.
And Jude Jenkins lives to push my buttons.
Just like I live to push his.
So my smile is slow and smug. I tilt my head, watching him back, like I’m not bothered at all by my ruffled hair or the explosion of chaos that is his desk; like the sight of his toned forearms does nothing to me. All around us, our coworkersbustle between desks and sip from coffee mugs. It smells like carpet cleaner and warm paper in here.
“That’s sweet of you to offer,” I say. “But didn’t you lose the Pretzel Media contract last month?”
Irritation flashes in those indigo eyes, right before Jude smooths it away with another sunny smile. Still, he can’t hide from me.
This is why we’ve fought tooth and nail since our first day on the job together. This is why we can’t leave thisthingbetween us the hell alone: weseeeach other.
It’s agonizing.
“They went in another direction,” Jude says airily, blunt fingers tapping on the only clear patch of his desk. There could be rodents living in that mound of office supplies for all we know. A whole tiny civilization, with a network of tunnels through the bedrock of printouts and binder files. “Acheaperdirection. If Pretzel can’t afford quality, that’s hardly my problem, is it Violet? Or would you have halved your fee for them?” He winces with pity, shaking his head. “There’s no need to be desperate. Know your worth! Your last video was almost good.”
My last video was fuckingawesome, and this jerk knows it. It was a music video for an up-and-coming pop star, one we filmed on location in all these abandoned jungly warehouses, and it went so well that the office held a little screening so the interns could take notes. So nyuh.
Jude’s just being an ass. Like always.
“Your desk is a disaster zone.” Spinning my pencil around, I poke the eraser into a pile of notepads and opened letters, shunting them back across the boundary line between our desks. A paper clip drops to the floor, pinging across the polished floorboards. The whole mound trembles. “I should call pestcontrol. Do you live like this at home? Are you in Hoarders Anonymous?”
Jude leans forward, his voice dropping low—and every word rumbles through me, tingling in the marrow of my bones as he says, “Always so curious about my home life. If you want to see my apartment, Violet, you only need to ask.”
Damnthe heat creeping into my cheeks. Damn this urge to fan my face. This always happens: Jude saunters over and pushes all my buttons, one by one, until I don’t know whether I want to strangle him or crawl into his lap.
